Before I Go...
by TrekPhile47
Summary: When Tom dies, he finds that he has a chance to say goodbye.


Before I Go...

Title: Before I Go... 

Author: TrekPhile47 

Summary: When Tom dies, he has the opportunity to go back and say goodbye to the woman he loves. 

Rating: R 

Spoilers: Through season five and especially _"Day of Honor."_

Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, they never will be and I am too poor to buy them, so it's not worth asking. This story is purely a figment of my overactive imagination, put down into the computer and any resemblance to any of these characters, living or dead, or the situation is purely coincidental. No computers were harmed during the writing of this fanfiction; but many Kleenex will give their lives for all of the weepy-eyed readers.

Keywords: Paris/Torres Romance

Archive: Only with author's written consent. [TrekPhile47@hotmail.com][1]

***

Tom Paris's vision was hazy and blurred as he sat on an empty bed in Sickbay. Watching the unsettling events that unfolded before him. 

B'Elanna cried into Tom's shoulder openly and let her sobs pour into him, into his dead body, wishing and hoping they would revive him, but he did not stir, he lay on the biobed with a gray Starfleet sheet covering his body up to his head. 

"Please, Tom, come back, I love you. I need you here," she cried as the Doctor pulled the sheet over him and gently took B'Elanna by the arm. Chakotay pulled her into his embrace and she rested her head on his chest, eyes puffy and red, but her tears wouldn't come anymore, they wouldn't flow. 

Tom, who had been watching from a distance since the beginning of this entire ordeal, moved to her silently, not touching the floor and placed a hand on her face. He expected to feel her soft skin, but his fingers passed through her as if she were liquid. Tom himself didn't particularly enjoy what he saw looking down at himself; the bruises had become puffy, and his skin had taken on a bluish tint. He wondered how B'Elanna could look at him. 

Chakotay led B'Elanna slowly out of Sickbay, taking her weight on him; Tom thought he could detect a small tear in the corner of his eyes. It touched him. Janeway stayed a few moments, trying to cope with her pilot and friend's death. She too, turned and left Sickbay, grief painted on her face. 

He remembered dying; he was killed in a flying accident, the Delta Flyer careened into a planet's surface. The last thing that he remembered seeing as a living being was the black of a broken console, then black everywhere. Then, he was looking at himself, from above, his body. His neck was twisted at an odd angle, his knees were crushed against the bottom of the console, which had collapsed, his left arm was detached from the socket and his right hand was pushed through the console. 

He had made no attempt at moving his body; it would have been useless, like trying to pick up plasma with a fork. He waited as Harry and as the Captain beamed down and examined his body; and protectively stood near Harry as he discreetly ridded himself of his stomach contents. 

He had stood with the Captain as she told the crew what had happened. He looked at the faces, the shock, the sadness, and the tears. He looked into B'Elanna's face the longest. She hadn't cried at all, her face was stone, she was a titanium wall. Only when she was alone did she cry: she cursed him, begged him to come back, and then cursed him again. Tom was now incapable of crying, but that did not mean that he had no reason to. He stood and watched as she fell into a fitful slumber; watching over her, making sure she wouldn't do anything stupid to herself. He managed to focus his energy and hid anything that she could use to hurt herself. 

Now he watched as the Doctor wrapped his body in the gray sheet and gently laid it into the small cargo box that was to be used as a coffin; Tom thanked God that B'Elanna had been removed before she could see this. 

Suddenly a thought struck him: wasn't there supposed to be another side? What if there wasn't? There had to be, if not, the other people who were on the ship and had died would be with him, too. 

"I can't just leave her. I never even said good-bye," he admitted. "I need to tell her how much I love her. I want to say good-bye to _Voyager_...to B'Elanna." His pained vouce wracked all that existed in Consciousness and his tears burned through his eyes.

The Doctor stared at him suddenly, where before he was staring _through_ him. "...Mr. Paris?" 

"Doc? You can see me?" 

"I can, but I'm not sure that I believe it," he moved to the coffin and stared down into it's contents, Tom's body was still there. 

"It's hard to explain, Doc, maybe you should get the Captain and Chakotay down here or something. I don't think it would be a good idea for me to roam the decks of _Voyager_." 

The Doctor complied and Tom waited for the Captain Janeway to reach Sickbay, he touched everything in the room, everything suddenly felt and looked clearer, he knew everything, knew what it was for, knew what the readouts were, he knew the feelings of being omnipotent. 

Captain Janeway looked ashen when she had entered the room. Tom knew that she didn't believe what she was seeing. "I am real," he assured, "I am here. Just not on a level that you can understand." 

"Oh my God," she gasped, she placed her hands to her mouth and tears fell down her face. Chakotay looked about ready to fall to his knees and pray. 

He told Janeway and Chakotay everything that had happened to him, since he had died, and his goal. She didn't disbelieve him; she looked like she was going to cry. He felt like he was talking down to both of them, now that he knew far more than wither of them. 

He read their thoughts and fears, their memories. It was a rush in his brain that scared him. He read the thoughts of Seven of Nine in that moment, then of Harry's. He thought of B'Elanna and was impaled by the pain that she had mentally projected. 

He told the captain of his gift, knowing the future, the past and all things happening. Janeway seemed shell-shocked, but Tom continued. 

"Captain, I want to know if I can say my good-byes, there is someone special that I have to," Tom said. 

"Yes, you can say goodbye Tom." 

Tom got up to leave, but turned at a flicker in Janeway and Chakotay. "Yes?" 

"Tom, I don't know how I can say this, but everyone here is going to miss you a lot. A whole lot," Chakotay said. "I know we weren't close ever, but I'm going to miss you more than you'll ever know." 

Tom stifled a chuckle. "Commander, I can feel it in you, and I know it's real." 

"I think that of all of us, B'Elanna is definitely going to miss you the most," Chakotay dropped his head. 

"I know, Commander. That is why I have to say good-bye to her the most," and then, he departed. 

***

Tom pushed the chime on B'Elanna's door. He had decided that _Voyager_ was not ready to see a ghost on top of all the other things that they had once seen to change their religion. ...But B'Elanna was the woman that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, and without her, Eternity would be a long time. 

He waited for B'Elanna to open the door. Her thoughts bombarded him. She was filled with such confusion, with anger, denial, hate, and the most was passion. She bade him come in and then gasped when she saw who it was, she was in disbelief. 

B'Elanna threw her arms around him, pressing herself into him, crying into his chest, her hands exploring every inch of him, his face, his hands, his chest. He felt that she wasn't sure if he was really happening, but at that point didn't care. He needed her good-bye more than he needed anyone else's. He needed her before he passed on. 

"I thought you were dead," she said through her tears of joy. 

"I _am_ dead B'Elanna. I'm here to give you a message and ask a favor," he touched her gently, and projected his thoughts since his death into her. She shuddered upon being pelted with them, but her tears became those of sadness as she looked at him again. 

"I had to say goodbye to you, I had to let you know how much I loved you before I went to the other side," he told her. She had rested her head on his chest, he knew she wanted to feel a heartbeat, but he couldn't give her that. He had the ability, but giving that and then having it taken away from her would have ripped her apart. 

Tom, on the other hand, could feel her blood moving through her body, could feel her heart hammering with anticipation and fear. He could feel the prickle of her skin, and the pain she felt. 

"B'Elanna, I love you so much, I want you to know that I will always love you. My love for you will follow me through eternity. I will carry you with me forever, until you come to meet me on the other side," he said to her. He took her in his arms and kissed her forehead, every ridge, her nose, her cheeks, and her neck. He stained her with his kisses; she grew swollen with his passion. 

"I have to ask this of you, will you take me, and accept it in you, let it grow and become us? Will you have my child?" 

B'Elanna nodded, "I want you, I want to feel you again. I want you inside me once. I want to be the mother of your child. Make me feel alive." Her eyes begged to him, he knew he could never resist her. 

He kissed her, taking her for everything that she was; her imperfection, her passion, her rage, her ingenuity, her brilliance, her fear and her pain. He spindled it inside him, he changed it, he took it in him, letting it consume him and fill him. He took all her love and purified it, putting it back into her, leaving her breathless and asking for more. All of his senses told him what he was now, what he was then; it told him her past, her secrets, every nuance that made her B'Elanna Torres. It was all an emotion that was everything, but it was so much more. 

They made love forever, they took what they had, knowing it was their last opportunity together, and they gave what they had to one another. He gave her him, he gave her half of his whole, to make his half hers, to take what would soon be theirs and love it. 

Tom knew how to love her; his only regret about making love to her was that she would never be able to feel him inside her again. He knew B'Elanna's thoughts, she wanted to have him there with her forever, but also could feel that pain at her knowledge of knowing this was their first, last and only. Even now, making love to her was everything that Tom had expected and hoped it would be. The pain that he felt about leaving her he could not have predicted. 

He left her body absolutely breathless, but filled her with his love and his life and his warmth. She would never be able to have him again, but she would have a piece of him in her, and love it forever, just as she would love him forever. 

"I love you B'Elanna Torres," he whispered, taking her face in his hands. "I will never leave you. Take me, this part of me I gave you. Know that this little piece of perfection is you and I. It is us. My time is over, B'Elanna, but your time is still beginning." 

She nodded. She had no tears left; but she wouldn't have cried them. She saw his everything, knew he had to go and now knew what he had revealed to her was necessary and realized how much she needed it. She nodded and pulled his body to hers for the last time. He allowed her the faint heartbeat in his chest; she sighed with equal happiness and sadness. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her to sleep. She was reluctant, fearing that waking up and not seeing him there would have made all this a dream. He could feel the life that was beginning inside her, he began to know it's future. It would live; his unwed bride would name it after him and love it. It would be told about his father, he would become a pilot, he would fly like his father. 

"It's time for me to go B'Elanna," he whispered; he brushed her cinnamon-colored hair away from her face, brushing his fingertips across her brow ridges for the last time. "You will remember how much I love you. I'm sorry that we had to end in my death. If I could change it, I would." He kissed her cheek for the last time. The fuzziness faded over him again, and B'Elanna's body grew hazy and liquid again. If Tom could have wept, then he would have. He would have wept a sea of tears all for her. 

The light was the next thing that he felt, it filled him, it cleaned him, and it purified him. He strained to be part of both worlds, the one of the living and the one of the light of forever. "Good-bye, B'Elanna." 

Everything lit into the brightness of a thousand stars, and Tom could hear the words over the light, "I love you, Tom." It was the unspoken thought that would remain with B'Elanna to her own dying day. 

"Welcome, Tom Paris," the voice of water beckoned to him. He turned to go to it, and let forever consume him. 

***

When B'Elanna woke up, she felt a sob in her throat that Tom was not there with her. She knew what had happened was not a dream, it was real. She knew that she was pregnant, she could almost feel the life inside her. 

She would remember Tom forever. She would make it her lifelong goal to care for their child. 

"Wherever you may be Tom, I give you my solemn vow that this child will know you and your love, this child will be the link of us forever," she whispered, hoping that maybe, by some chance he would hear her. 

Tom heard her. 

-End-

   [1]: mailto:TrekPhile47@hotmail.com



End file.
